Good News

I very much welcome the guidelines; as I have been saying for well over a year now, the first step to encouraging the use of Free/open source software in the public sphere is to facilitate the adoption-led model in addition to the procurement-driven model, at the very least to the extent of encouraging two-phase procurement. As Rishab pointed out (although not with the same words), there are also the issues of substitutability and the freedom to leave, which I believe it's fundamental for a public administration to consider.

Substitutability guarantees citizens access to government without being forced to trade with a single vendor in order to do so, and the freedom to leave ensures public administrations always have the negotiating power to get the best deal for taxpayers. The guidelines begin to address those issues as well - great news.

Concerns

Of a sample of 3615 software tenders that were published between January and August this year, 36 percent request Microsoft software, 20 percent ask for Oracle, 12 percent mention IBM applications, 11 percent request SAP and 10 percent are asking for applications made by Adobe.

That's bad enough, and likely illegal in most cases, but then it also turns out:

According to Gosh, software tenders often have either implicit or explicit bias for software brands or even specific applications. Of a thousand government IT organisations, 33 percent said compatibility with previously acquired software is the most important criterion when selecting new applications. Ghosh: "This implicit vendor-lock in means that a tender, meant to last for only five years, leads to a contractual relation lasting ten, fifteen years or more."

Most concerning of all, however, was that despite this all being completely transparent and public, the Commission is doing nothing about it. They regard the problem as being one that the competitors of the favoured companies should address through the courts. That would be fine if the market was largely functional and there were only rare cases of abuse.

But it's not. The improper procurement activity is endemic, and until that's addressed any competitor attempting to act through the courts is likely to find themselves discriminated against even further. It's never good to sue your customers (as the music industry is finding), and in a market where the customers can specify you out of the running with impunity, it's suicidal. Moreover, it can take years for the courts to make a ruling, which means even more lost opportunity for competing companies - assuming they can survive the wait. Until the European Commission takes adequate corrective actions to address this disease, there is no step in the current software market condition that any competitor is likely to take to address it.

Recourse?

Given the scale of the disadvantage already present, why would any player want to make their position worse? In the report of the interview the Commission representative says: "There are sufficient ways for companies and other organisations to protect their rights." He may be right, but they aren't being used by the FOSS community and the reason is that the abuse is too extensive for anyone to want to make the first move.

I'm delighted by the fact the new procurement guidelines exist, but personally I want to see direct action to establish them - it can't be left up to those already disadvantaged. I wonder if anyone has the stomach for it?

Sunday Mar 02, 2008

I've previously spoken
of payment at the time of deployment rather than at the time of
selection - Software Market 3.0 - as the defining characteristic of
open source business models. As I've spoken about this in all sorts
of contexts, it's become apparent that this is just an aspect of a
deeper trend, which in some ways relates to Greg's
red-shift/blue-shift idea.

Traditionally, the
process of acquiring software has involved a request for proposal
from vendors against a customer specification. Vendors then make
proposals, submit prototypes, contend for business. In smaller bids,
an evaluation team considers trial versions, makes evaluations, makes
proposals to management. Eventually software is selected and paid
for. At that point, adoption can begin. Every user of software in
this model is also a customer. Software selection is something of a
matter of faith in the procurement-driven market.

Defining Adoption-Led

The switch to a mesh
topology for society1 has led to easy access for everyone to Free
software created by open source communities. The result is an
emerging approach which is rapidly spreading for smaller software
projects and in my view is the future of all software acquisition.
The emerging approach is an adoption-led market.

In this approach, developers select from available Free software and
try the software that fits best in their proposed application. They
develop prototypes, switch packages as they find benefits and
problems and finally create a deployable solution to their business
problem. At that final point, assuming the application is
sufficiently critical to the business to make it worthwhile to do so,
they seek out vendors to provide support, services (like defect
resolution) and more. Adoption-led users are not all customers; they
only become so when they find a vendor with value to offer.

Consequences

Written
down like that, it seems pretty obvious, but having a name for it –
an adoption-led market – has really helped pull together
explanations and guide strategy. For example:

In a procurement-driven market you need to go out and sell and have
staff to handle the sales process, but in an adoption-led market you
need to participate in communities so you can help users become
customers.

In a procurement-led market you need shiny features and great demos,
whereas in an adoption-led market you need software that is alive,
evolving and responsive to feedback.

In an adoption-led market you need support for older hardware and
platforms because adopters will use what works on what they already
have.

Adoption-led users self-support in the community until they deploy
(and maybe afterwards if the project is still “beta”) so
withholding all support as a paid service can be counter-productive.

Naturally
now I have a new hammer everything looks like a nail, so expect to
hear more of this if you talk with me!